Caramel

Disclaimer: Hers.

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The ashy end of a log fell with a soft thud into the grate, its skeletal embers glowing briefly, a few slow sparks drifting up and fading out.

The sitting room clock chimed the half-hour.

In the next room the two lovers lay still, each curled around or tucked into the other, drowsing in the warmth their bodies made beneath the bedclothes.

Severus stirred and brought his hand up from its resting place on Hermione's thigh to push back her hair. He kissed the skin behind her ear.

She turned to face him.

'It's time, isn't it?'

'Yes.' He reached out his hand and her clothes...skirt, shirt, cardigan, socks, underwear...flew to the bed, folding themselves in midair and landing in a pile beside her.

She turned away and put her hand on top of the pile. 'Thank you.' Her voice was small.

Summoning his trousers, he slipped from the bed and into them. 'I should be out of the bathroom in five minutes.' He collected the rest of his clothes and left the room.

Dressing himself, he stared into the mirror. Pulling at his mind and body was an unanswerable longing to keep her in his bed all night. To wake up beside her in the middle of the night, and in the morning.

Greedy sod.

This, apparently, was the danger in getting what you wanted: it only fed the wanting.

He pulled his coat sleeves straight and stepped into his sitting room.

* * *

After he left the room, she rolled onto her back and gazed up at the ceiling. Shouldn't she be feeling happy now instead of increasingly distraught?

But it was nearly curfew...time to bottle up everything she'd just experienced and shove it onto a shelf. Horrible.

She heard him leave the bathroom and so she picked up her clothes and slipped in there.

Dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror. I wish I could stay.

When would she ever be able to stay?

Never.

Unless...

She turned and ran out to the sitting room.

* * *

The Gryffindor common room was always at its fullest just after curfew. Usually, Hermione would have been grateful that Ron had staked out one of the best tables near the fire and was saving a chair for her.

'Ron, I can't. I've got loads to do. I need the quiet upstairs to concentrate.'

Ron glanced over at the alcove containing the chair containing Harry and Ginny and their two books. He flushed and, turning, glared into the fire.

Hermione sighed. 'I know it's hard, and lonely, and, and odd. Just let them be for a little while, can't you?'

'I am letting them be!' he growled. 'Do you see me bothering them?'

'No,' she said quietly. 'I don't. Listen, Ron. I have a couple of things that I simply must do upstairs. Then I'll come back down and work here, okay? Give me half...no, three quarters of an hour.'

'Okay. Thanks, Mione.' He smiled his sweet little-boy smile, looking up at her from under his fringe.

Dear Ron. She smiled back.

* * *

The bath in the girls' bathroom was not particularly large, but it was deep. Hermione held herself suspended, balancing on her heels and the tips of her fingers, her chin half-sunk in steaming, fragrant water.

Eyes closed, stupefied by the heat, she swung her hips from side to side, starting currents and eddies sliding across her skin and sloshing up the sides of the bath.

The stinging ache between her legs...which had spiked on contact with the hot bathwater...began to subside. She rested her hand on the tender flesh.

Lover. Lover. Lover.

She held on to the word, using it to push away the worrying and analysing and judging thoughts swarming the edges of her mind. Severus was right, she knew he was: worry would take her nowhere she hadn't already been, and nowhere she wanted to be.

Worrying is not the same thing as planning, he'd said. Try not to worry too much. Did he really know her that well, or was it written all over her face? Probably the latter, as he'd given her a Dissembling Draught before she left. To ease her reentry into reality.

The problem (was it a problem?) was that she wasn't certain, at the moment, which was more real: Gryffindor Tower, Hogwarts Castle, the world in general, and the last seventeen point seven years of her life; or two point four hours in one high, wide, uncanopied bed in the Slytherin dungeons.

* * *

She must have had a shower or a bath. Her hair was up, but damp bits curled around the edges of her face. And on her neck. Which was a nice neck, actually, when it was

naked

bare like this. He could never figure why girls liked bathing so much; they'd do it at the drop of a hat. Lavender; Ginny; even his mum. A girl thing. Maybe that's why they always smelled so good. She smelled

delicious

fantastic right now. He leaned towards her, reaching for a quill. She looked up from her book. Was she startled he was so close? He smiled his little-boy smile and retreated, quill in hand, eyes still on her.

The fire was making shadows on her face; maybe that's why her mouth looked sort of

ripe

pretty. Red. Different. He licked his lips...dry. Must be thirsty.

'Mione, fancy a butterbeer? I'm just going to get one for myself.'

'Ronald! It's eleven o'clock on a school night!' Now her mouth looked more like it usually did. Sort of thin and frowning.

'Well, I'm thirsty.' Even before she rolled her eyes, he realised his voice had come out on a whine...the sort of tone his mum always scolded him for.

But then... 'I'm sorry, Ron. I didn't mean to snap at you.' She was smiling at him, and her hand was on his. He suddenly wanted to twine his fingers in with hers so their hands were palm to palm...

She picked up her quill again. 'Just some water for me, as long as you're getting up. Thank you.'

He got up, a little dazed, and headed for the cupboard where older pupils were allowed to keep food and drink.

Lavender (how long had she been sitting there?) chose the moment he was passing her chair, laden with a bottle, a full water glass, and a bag of crisps, to stretch her legs out.

He nearly tripped. 'Careful, Lav!' he squawked.

Her look was pure scorn. 'REALLY, Ronald. It's eLEVen o'clock on a SCHOOL night. Have you no DEcency?'

'Um, guess not,' he muttered, stepping over her legs.

'Fool.' She said it quietly, but he heard it, all right.

He let it go. What was her problem? He dropped heavily into his chair, clattering bottle and glass on the table, spilling some water.

Hermione picked up her wand and murmured, 'Thanks, Ron. Tergeo.' And she sank back into her book, as quickly as that, as though he himself wasn't even there.

Ron ripped open the bag of crisps and shoved a handful in his mouth. Bloody Harry. His best mate should be here backing him up. But no. Harry thinks girls are just GRAND.

He studiously avoided looking at the Harry-and-Ginny chair. He really did not want to see what he might see. What he would see. Traitor.

Good crisps, though. He sighed and twisted the top off of his butterbeer.

* * *

The calm, vibrant, confident feeling had leached away before she'd been gone half an hour. Like coming down off a drug: a smooth but inexorable collapse of his spirits.

He rather hoped he'd find a rule-breaker or two tonight. He craved that sharp, sour satisfaction...the sort of familiar pleasure that might distract him, stop him obsessing on what couldn't be helped.

But no joy. He swept through the dim corridors, a luckless predator alone with his thoughts.

One particular thought struck him halfway down the sixth-floor picture gallery.

Eight minutes later he was unlocking a cabinet in the Restricted Section and extracting a crumbling folio volume in Old Ukrainian. Forty-four minutes later, he sat there still, in a pool of wandlight on the floor, occupied with the beginnings of a new train of thought. One that made his heart speed up.

The school clock struck midnight and he rose and reshelved the book. It was time he was back in his rooms.

* * *

The bright chimes of the common room clock lagged behind those of the school clock by just half a beat...BONG bing! BONG bing! The clocks' syncopation had bothered Hermione at first, but for years now she'd rather loved it. It was a homely sound.

Tonight she didn't notice it at all. When the big clock began to strike the hour, her eyes flew to the smaller one on the mantelpiece. Midnight. She'd actually been able to lose herself in her HoM reading, and the hour had flown.

She nearly leapt from her chair. But. Even with her glamour and the Dissembling Draught both operating, she needed to be circumspect. So she rubbed her neck and smiled at Ron. 'Bed for me. Goodnight, Ron.' She closed books, rolled parchment, wiped quills, fitted everything into her bag, and set herself the task of getting across the room and up the stairs in a natural, casual, everyday sort of way.

It's like training for a life on the stage, she thought as she nodded to Parvati, standing at the sink beside her with a mouth full of toothpaste foam.

Or a career in espionage, she thought as she slipped the little tin from her desk drawer into her dressing gown pocket in full view of Lavender, who was brushing her hair.

Heart racing, she closed her bed curtains and cast silencing and deflecting spells in a dense web around the bed. Or a future as a succubus. That one made her snort with nervous laughter.

She was about to send a message when her own Galleon flared:

I'm ready

She picked a sliver of caramel out of the tin and, focusing her intention, cast the spell and put the sweet on her tongue.

Touching wand to Galleon, she thought

here I come

* * *

The first touch was just her hand in his, fingers laced, palms touching. He raised his hand to his lips and kissed the space where her hand was...invisible but warm, solid, soft, and real to the touch.

And then she pulled his hand to her mouth; he watched the hand move a few inches and hover, felt her parted lips on his knuckle, the wet inside of her mouth. He raised his other hand to touch the skin where she'd kissed him...dry. Fascinating.

Risking a larger movement, he reached out both arms to enfold her, and ow fucking ow! Something hard collided with his nose. Her head. She must have been moving in for a kiss.

Well, this is going to take some work. He rubbed his nose.

She grasped his hand in both of hers and peppered it with little contrite kisses.

Right. He held her palm to his lips again and spoke against the flesh, slowly and emphatically: 'Don't. Move.'

When he embraced her, it was as though she lay atop him. His hands, which appeared to be suspended in midair, were splayed over her back, buried in the hair at the back of her head.

He let his attention flicker around their bodies: to one of her calves pressed against the outer surface of his own; to a lock of her hair curling under his upper arm. She was there, complete in every detail of texture, temperature, shape, weight. Only no sight. No sound.

Experimentally, he moved his mind but not his body so that he was sitting upright with her in his lap. The sensations were utterly different. He could only feel what his mind concentrated on: when he thought of her arse on his thigh, he felt a patch of contact there but nowhere else...her hair, arms, legs, torso were all gone.

He tried to expand his consciousness outward from the area of contact, but the sensations began to flicker and weaken as he worked to hold more of her in his mind.

Working theory number one: allowing the physical body fully to align with its astral projection obviates the need to hold parts of the astral bodies in contact using the conscious mind.

Corollary: this is a good thing, since the conscious mind is apparently able to grasp approximately bugger-all at any given moment.

In other words: act as though she's there and she is.

So he closed his eyes, rolled her over on her back, and began to kiss her in earnest, snaking one hand down along the curve of her soft, warm belly and the ridge of her hip to explore her state of arousal.

Ah, god, so ready. His cock, which had been at least half-hard since before she'd touched his hand, jumped against her hip. He raised his finger to his mouth and nose...no taste, no smell, and of course the finger was dry the moment it left her.

Odd, very odd. But workable.

Something else was odd... she was being unusually passive. Oh. Right.

He grasped her hand and placed it on his hip, and whispered against her throat, 'Move with me.'

She surged into life, wrapping her legs around his, kissing his mouth feverishly, biting his neck (will that leave a mark I wonder OH JESUS FUCKING CHRIST), grasping his cock, and mouthing want you against his throat.

And if he happened to look like a fool, plunging and panting above an invisible girl on his bed, no one was there to see it. If he, perhaps, moaned and shouted her name, and, holding her afterwards, strung together a sort of psalm of possessive and tender whisperings, she wasn't there to hear it.

Best of all, if he chose to sleep naked and entwined with Hermione Granger every bloody night for as long as she would have him, no one need be the wiser.

* * *

In the small hours, she half-woke from a dream, full of longing.

Not a dream. His arm was wrapped around her, his lips on her neck, his knee pushing between her legs.

She moaned and pulled his hand down around her hip, pushing into his body, reaching clumsily between her legs to coax him forward.

So good, so good, soooo good. She ached from use, but to refuse him was unthinkable. She wanted him all around her, inside her, all the time, it seemed.

'Any time,' she whispered, though he couldn't hear. 'Anywhere, anytime, all the time, always yours.'

She fell asleep in his arms, and when she awoke again later, still in darkness, she felt around for him with hand and mind but he was gone. The potion must have worn off.

She drifted, wondering disjointedly how one could calibrate the dosage... Will need... experiments... She smiled and slept.

* * *

There was a clattering and banging at the window across the room. After a moment, Lavender pushed aside her curtain...her bed was nearest...and lunged at the window latch. The owl hopped inside and dropped the square envelope at Lavender's feet.

'It's for you, Hermione. Muggle post at the crack of dawn, if you please,' Lavender said, dropping the envelope on the floor before bundling back into her bed and jerking the curtains closed.

Hermione leapt out of bed and hurried to gather up the letter. It was from Jill, postmarked the day before.

13 May 1997

Jill

Hermione chewed on a fingertip and looked up at the waiting barn owl. 'Oh,' she said to it, 'I'm so sorry. I don't have a treat for you here...it's the dormitory. But come back to me at breakfast in the Great Hall; I'll have a letter for you then, and a good treat. I promise.'

The owl hooted dolefully and flew away. Hermione walked to her desk and sank into her chair. She dug out a box of Muggle stationery, a biro, and a postage stamp.

14 May 1997

Hermione

She read it over. Nonspecific enough, surely. And putting Jill off for another day or so would allow her to figure out how much she could safely tell.

The Galleon in her pocket flared:

Bring copy of P Corium to DADA after lessons

Nice, she thought, hurt. Terribly romantic of you, Professor. 'Good morning' too much to ask for, I suppose, or even 'please would you'...

The Galleon grew hot with another message: all the runes encircling the hippogriff on the coin's reverse turned into tiny, perfectly wrought, full-blown roses, each glowing red as it appeared, then fading to gold.

Oh. GOD. How to contain this feeling? Must run now. She Summoned her trainers. Collected herself. Sent one message:

certainly

and another: each rune spinning on its axis in a giddy dance.

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A/N: Of course you knew we weren't done with Percipio Corium quite yet. :D

Thanks to hechicera and lifeasanamazon for the beta/Brit-pick.